I got back to the room 2 hours later to play more Malifaux, woooo!! Folks were noticeably laggier after the break. I had fewer interesting conversations, slightly more subdued opponents, and a discussion that was heading towards “heated”.
Here’s a copy of the Story Scenarios, for those interested in reading about what the games were.
Game 1
My first game was against Paul and his Von Schill. (With NO Lazarus, Tao!) The Schemes available were Line, Bodyguard, Protect Territory, Deliver a Message, Plant Explosives. I took Plant Explosives and Deliver and revealed Deliver. He took Protect Territory and Plant Explosives.
This was a strange game. I was doing very well, and it wasn’t until turn 3 that I noticed something very important to my own sense of how well I was doing. At the start of the game, Paul had noted that he had an achievement in his hand. I said it was to bad it wouldn’t be there at the end, and he said it would definitely be there. I had no idea what he was talking about, until I noticed that he would start the turn by drawing 2 cards, stoning for some more cards and then would put his entire hand except those 2 cards to the side. By turn 5, he was playing with a single card. This meant that on every single duel, if my random flip beat him, he wasn’t stopping it. If his random flip beat mine, I could cheat up to beat him, but he couldn’t cheat back.
In turn 5, I asked him what he was going for, and if I could help. I was going to get 10VPs for the game against his…at that point, not many, I may as well make it more pleasant for him! I cheating down a few duels so that Von Schill could kill Mei for another achievement, but no amount of down-cheating could help his single card hand!
The scenario was neat – place 3 pieces of terrain in the center. You can do a (1) Interact to search them for a monster, and flip on a random table to see what happens. 1VP for finding the monster, and 3VP for killing it. I found it, and the monster appeared in the middle of my crew, so it was relatively easy for me to get this. I won this one 10-3 – I couldn’t remove enough Markers to win by more.
Also, this game showed me how amazing Hans is. I had previously encountered Hans in a game against Tao at GottaCon, but in that game he had been removed pretty quickly. In this game, he brought Sue down to a single wound before I got him behind cover!
Costumes!
I had been wearing this stuff all day, and here is the reason! This was a ton of fun – super glad I took part! As the first costume I’ve ever made, I was pretty pleased with myself – but it pales in comparison to the guy in blue at the back who hand sewed his jacket!
Game 2
I played the tired Andrew T and his Sonnia Criid crew. The scenario was to move brew components back and forth between two points on the table. The Scheme pool was Line, Assassinate, Protect Territory, Power Ritual, Spring the Trap. I took Assassinate on a whim and Power Ritual, revealing Power Ritual. Andrew took Assassinate and Line.
We were randomly assigned the Sewer Board from earlier in the day, but we both looked at it and decided to move one to the left to play on this much more reasonable table.
I took one blast from Sonnia before I re-learned the lesson from Rasputina earlier that day – Vent Steam, all day and all night. Don’t active Mei until he’s done activating, take 2 AP and then Vent that fucking Steam. (-) to Ca and Sh is brutal to a casting master, and it’s all I’ve got to stop my models from being blasted to pieces!
I quickly moved across the table to gum up the middle. I had taken a Performer who can Interact while engaged, so my plan was to ferry the components with her while everything stood in the center. It was a good plan, and it kind of worked.
I regretted taking Assassinate – I’m just not good at the Alpha Strike. But in this case, the Rail Golem had a solid run of low Tomes and Locomoted twice to charge Criid and took her off the table. Jamie would agree, the Rail Golem is bent.
I learned afterwards that apparently the Tournament Organizer had announced that you could Interact while engaged in this scenario. Neither of us heard this, and it could have made a difference. I spent a lot of energy stopping his models from getting to the center, but I don’t remember if he had a brew component there.
I won this game 8-4. Power Ritual is a gimme for the December Acolyte in Corner/Flank deployment (and pretty easy for Firestarter as well), 3VPs for the Strategy and 2 from Assassinate.
Game 3
I have no photos from Game 3. Game 3 started at 1am and ended around 3am. The scenario was that you had to use two (1) Interacts from different models to erect tents on terrain pieces, and the same to take them down. The Defender had to put the tents up and got 1VP for each table quarter containing a tent, and the Attacker had to take them down and got 1VP for each quarter without a tent. The Schemes were Line, Breakthrough, Distract, Plant Evidence, Make Them Suffer. I took Breakthrough and Distract, and Crissy took Breakthrough and Plant Evidence.
This game started out quite poorly, but ended really well. So keep that in mind while you read this story. 😛
I moved my Steam Arachnid Swarm incorrectly, and Crissy made sure I knew it. At 1am, communication and comprehension was very poor and I didn’t understand what I had done wrong. I tried to explain what I thought. She tried to explain what she thought. I tried to explain. She tried to explain. I placed the model on the table and asked if it was ok, and she said it was. It was a difficult moment, and I tried to keep chipper, but it wasn’t easy.
Minutes later I was moving Mei, and the same conversation happened again about how I was moving incorrectly. I still had no idea what I was doing wrong, but I talked through what I wanted to do, with a measuring tape, and Crissy agreed that I was doing it right and we moved on.
I will be honest…at that moment, I thought of leaving the game. It was late, we were tired and irritable, and we’d had two difficult rules discussions within 10 minutes of the start of the game. If the rest of the game continued like that it wasn’t worth staying up super late for. I don’t know what did it, but I decided to stick with the game and keep on keeping on. With the 1:30am chipperness.
That was the last rule problem. And eventually my effort at being friendly turned into just being friendly, and conversation happened and I think we may have laughed, and it was a really great game! We said that we should have a re-match via Vassal at some point, and Crissy is pushing Vassal demos on the Facebook group, but I don’t think I have time to do such a thing! I’m so lame. >.<
On the flight back from Chicago I was reading the rulebook and discovered what our problem that night had been. There was a wall in my deployment zone, and I had moved over it as if it was Severe terrain, paying double movement for the inch wide wall. So I pick up my Swarm that moves 5″, and move it 4″. I have no excuse for not knowing that 1″ walls were climbable, and thus you had to pay for the movement up at double and then you continued moving. So my Swarm that moves 5″ had to move 1″ to the wall, then 2″ up and then had 2″ further it could go, moving a total of 3″. But I’d never played walls that way, somehow. I’m so sorry Crissy, I had no idea!
Now after that story of inadvertent cheating, the rest of this post is a little embarrassing. 😛 …I won the Story Encounter! I left with a pile of goodies! And I got this sweeeet plaque, that I’m super happy to have!
Super happy. Or a zombie. I was told several times that day that I looked like ass. <3 my friends.
Got back to my hotel at 4am and passed right out, happy to have played just a ton of my favourite game against some excellent opponents. 😀
